Monitoring macronutrients & macrominerals

mzbek24

In your opinion, in addition to carbs, fat and protein, which ones are the best/most important to feature in view on the main diary page? I'm curious as to what others have chosen, and why.

On the diary settings, it only allows you to view some of these on your daily diary entries, the others are hidden from view and you've got to remember to go into the reports if you don't use the app on your phone, where you can check the nutritional panel. Well, that point might just be unique to me lol, I tend to forget to keep checking & only look occasionally to see if I'm on track. I found that when I stick within my fat goal, most of the time saturated fat is also in check.

I've chosen sugar and sodium to display in the diary, and for ages I've watched my intake of those, while I had to choose not to have fibre, sat fat etc in full view. Now, on checking my reports I'm thinking I could be getting a bit more fibre lately, but I really don't want to stop monitoring sugar and sodium! I wish I could more easily monitor all of them lol.

michikade

It really depends on what a person's goals are.

For example, my mother is slightly hyperkalemic and has slightly elevated cholesterol so someone like her would want to monitor potassium and cholesterol levels.

For me, I just have the big three on mine on the website, but I use the app too and it has a full breakdown so I check that to see out of curiosity's sake where I'm at on those.

AJ_G

Why are you monitoring sugar? Unless you have a legitimate medical reason to monitor sugar intake (diabetic, prediabetic, PCOS, etc), it's completely unnecessary. Instead total carb intake is what you should be concerned about. Fiber on the other hand is very important and you should be tracking that instead. Shoot for 30+ grams of fiber a day. Sodium is also not a big deal unless you have blood pressure problems or you are very sedentary. If you're active, you sweat out a good deal of salt during the day. I'd recommend tracking fat, protein, carbohydrates, and fiber.

TavistockToad

macrominerals?! dont you mean micronutrients?

mzbek24

Not too sure why I picked sugar and sodium, I think I just didn't trust myself to not eat an indecent amount of sugars, I had noticed I was eating about 100g a day when it went unwatched. I read a bit and thought it seemed a bit much. I've got an awful sweet tooth even if it's for fruit, so I was concerned about getting diabetes.
I'm quite active, in my 5th week of training for a half marathon + weights and cross training. I have previously had PCOS two years back before I lost any weight (but no trace found now on my ultrasound scans etc and no symptoms) and very high cholesterol (not sure if still high)

And nope, I do mean macrominerals lol. I think it sounds like it would make sense if they were just called micronutrients! but, I believe, the micronutrients are actually more so your vitamins, those we need less of (say 100g or less daily) to perform vital bodily functions, whereas macrominerals are typically those we require a large amount of per day, like sodium, calcium, potassium etc. So in this topic I mean macronutrients-carbs, fats, sat fats, protein, sugars, -and macrominerals, such as sodium.

AJ_G

Not sure what you're talking about with this whole "macrominerals" thing. The recommended daily Sodium intake is less than 3 grams per day so that's definitely a micronutrient. Also you can't get diabetes from high sugar intake UNLESS that means you're eating too many carbs relative to your protein and fat intake and even then you won't really get diabetes until you're overweight or develop a problem with insulin resistance. As mentioned before it's the total carb intake that you should watch, not sugar. I know people who regularly eat over 100g of sugar a day but they watch their carb intake and eat plenty of protein and fat and they're extremely healthy.

newdaydawning79

I have cals, cholesterol, fiber, protein, fat and carbs. Cholesterol because mine's a bit higher than recommended although my doc isn't concerned in the slightest (she literally shrugged when I told her my recent numbers). Fiber and protein for obvious reasons, and I'm nearly always over on both, especially protein. Fat and carbs are just there to fill it up. I'm over on fat occasionally but not so much that I worry about it.

Jim_Barteck

I monitor carbs, fats, protein, fiber and sodium.

MinnieInMaine

I mostly just pay attention to calories but have the big three plus fiber and sodium.

ETA: I was curious so I googled macrominerals and micronutrients and apparently macrominerals are a subset of the micronutrient list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronutrients
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/nutrition/vitamins-minerals/micronutrients-what-they-are-and-why-theyre-essential.html

Macrominerals:
Calcium, Chloride, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Potassium, Sodium & Sulpher